


as certain dark things are to be loved

by hptriviachamp



Series: More Than One Path to Happiness [2]
Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hptriviachamp/pseuds/hptriviachamp
Summary: The Becoming of Miss Selina BridgertonChapter 1: Aubrey Hall, 1826 pt. 1Chapter 2: Aubrey Hall, 1826 pt. 2
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Siena Rosso, Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Daphne Bridgerton/Simon Basset, Eloise Bridgerton/Phillip Crane, Sophie Beckett/Benedict Bridgerton
Series: More Than One Path to Happiness [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210661
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. At Aubrey Hall (1826) Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,_   
>  _in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”_
> 
> -Pablo Neruda

The annual Bridgerton Pall-Mall Game was well underway. 

To clarify, there were several games of Pall-Mall held every summer when the extended Bridgerton clan retired to their country estates and eventually made their pilgrimage to Aubrey Hall. However, there was really only one game that could be classified as an annual event: the one reserved exclusively for the elder Bridgertons and their spouses. This was the one with lax rules which required rather… _rigorous_ participation.

It was also not open to any of the Bridgerton children, as their parents collectively feared for their safety. 

And so on the sunny Sunday when the 1826 Pall-Mall Game was to be held, Miss Selina Bridgerton found herself huddled around the large window in the upstairs hall along with several of her cousins so they could see the expansive lawns of Aubrey where the game was being played.

Lady Belinda, who was deeply jealous of all the adults allowed to participate in a game the _children_ weren’t (I mean really, weren’t games meant from _them_ and not the old people?), had suggested that they spectate. And as the coterie of tutors and governesses charged with looking after the them were off on Sundays, they had nothing better to do so they’d collectively acquiesced.

The Crane twins were particularly enraptured by this version of the game and soon became deeply invested as Lady Belinda kept up a running commentary.

“My mama will trounce all of yours!” Amanda Crane declared before the first round had concluded. This was probably true- despite being heavily pregnant, Lady Crane seemed to be celebrating a particularly violent hit while her husband looked on proudly.

Such a partisan comment was only met with several others.

“I’d say Papa has a sporting chance,” Lady Amelia said, eying her father the Duke of Hastings as he hit the ball skillfully, although not very strategically in the context of the larger game.

“I think so too,” Charles Bridgerton agreed, “for Uncle Anthony is on his team.”

Selina craned her neck a little. Ah yes, there was her father, perhaps the most viciously competitive of the lot (which Mama would have called unseemly- the man was well over forty), aiming his shot. 

"How come your mama isn't here?" Oliver Crane asked Selina all of a sudden, perhaps noticing that Lord Bridgerton had no natural partner, and was instead partnered with the Hastings’. 

Little Lady Caroline immediately elbowed him in the ribs and hissed, "You can't _ask_ that, Oliver!"

Selina flushed. Her Basset cousins and Charles already had some inkling of her and Gee’s living arrangements, in that it was not… _normal_ , to them, at least. But Oliver and Amanda Crane were newcomers, their Aunt Crane’s stepchildren after she married Sir Phillip last year, and they had obviously never been told why the Viscount Bridgerton was unmarried and instead lived with a woman most of the family had never met. 

"No," Oliver insisted rather bullishly. "What's wrong with wanting to know? I want to know." He addressed the last bit not at Caroline, but at Selina once more. 

She had not quite grasped the complexities of her parents' living situation, but she'd gathered after prior visits with her cousins that most parents ventured out in public together, attended parties and balls and the sort. Selina had only ever seen her parents together at their home in Hampstead Heath. Her mama had certainly never been to Bridgerton House or Aubrey Hall. 

"She's singing," Selina offered, somewhat tongue-tied at being addressed directly. "Opera.”

This did not satisfy Oliver’s curiosity.

"Mama's in Australia!" Selina’s older sister Georgiana chirruped, eager to say something interesting.

Selina sighed. It was called _Austria_ , not Australia, wherever that was. But Gee’s statement caught the children’s attention immediately.

Lady Caroline frowned. “Papa told me Australia is where the convicts go.”

 _This_ , Oliver found fascinating. “Coo-er,” he said in wonderment, “is your mama a convict?”

“No!” Gee cried. “My mama sings opera- she said she’s met the king!”

“Of Australia?” Amanda pressed.

It was Charles, the youngest of them at eight years-old, who corrected Amanda. “Our king is their king,” he attempted not very coherently, but spoke with enough authority on the matter for the others to listen. 

Lady Belinda appeared to have understood Charles and arrived at his conclusion for him: “So she’s met the King of England?” she asked Gee.

Gee nodded cheerfully. “Mama told us he was enormously fat and ate an entire roast pig while she performed for him.”

Amelia, at twelve, was becoming quite the little lady and apparently, Gee’s statement offended her burgeoning sense of propriety. “You can’t say things like that about the _king_!” she said in scandalized tones. 

Selina thought she sounded rather like her mother, the eminently proper Lady Hastings, who was currently in whoops over her brother Lord Bridgerton’s recent shot. 

This behavior was, obviously, an outlier.

Gee shrugged it off. “And now _our_ Mama,” she said very proudly, looking pointedly at Selina, “is in Australia to sing in _their_ operas.”

“I should like to know where Australia is,” Lady Caroline said, having already lost interest in the Pall-Mall game. Selina was too- there was only so many rounds of hitting a ball one could watch before it started to get rather tedious.

Charles proposed they go down to the library so they could find Australia on the large globe the viscount kept in there. From there, it was a mad rush to the library, with Lady Amelia attempting (and failing) to lead the rest of them in an orderly fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, the Ladies Amelia (12 in this chapter), Belinda (11), Caroline (10), and David, Earl Clyvedon (9), are Daphne and Simon's children.  
> Charles Bridgerton (8) is the eldest of Benedict and Sophie.  
> Georgiana (11) and Selina Bridgerton (9) are Anthony and Siena's daughters.  
> Amanda and Oliver Crane (both 10) are Phillip and Eloise's children.
> 
> All information on ages comes from Julia Quinn's extended family tree!


	2. At Aubrey Hall (1826) Part 2

Selina somehow found herself alone within ten minutes. The others, having long found Australia on the globe and coming to the consensus that there was no way Mrs. Rosso was there for the summer, had abandoned the library.

Selina stayed, wandering around until she found an old, worn copy of _contes de fées_ , similar to the one her papa used to read her every night until she was six. Mama would joke that the only French she knew had to be sung.

Selina felt a sudden sharp ache within her. She missed her Mama. 

She took the book and brought it to one of the large wingback chairs, only to find it occupied.

So _that’s_ where David was hiding, she thought with some amusement, looking at the slender, dark-skinned boy who was curled up comfortably in the chair, cradling a book that seemed altogether too large for him.

She’d wondered where he was briefly when the cousins had been left to their own devices, but David had always been a bit shy and set apart from the rest of them. Selina too would rather be alone or with her sister, but she always seemed to be dragged into something or another when she was at Aubrey Hall.

She’d noticed nobody ever seemed to press the Earl Clyvedon the same way despite them being the same age. Instead, his reserved manners ensured he was doted upon by his three older sisters, and treated with the utmost care, as if he were some fragile object, by his parents. 

"Hello," David said when he finally noticed her presence, looking up at her with unblinking, black eyes.

"Hello," Selina replied cautiously. “Can I…” she trailed off and gestured to the chair across from him.

"This is your papa's library," he said, "so you can do as you'd like."

Right, it was Papa's. She’d only started coming here when Mama’s touring abroad had greatly increased in the past few years, so it was easy for her to forget that Aubrey Hall was her father's estate, especially when everyone else seemed so at ease here compared to her and Gee. 

She settled into her seat and began thumbing through the stories until she found one she liked. 

“What were they all doing in the library?” David asked suddenly. “I could hear them all the way from here.”

She looked up and examined his expression. Was he annoyed his precious solitude had been interrupted?”

“They were looking for Australia,” she said.

“And they thought they’d find it here?”

She giggled at his puzzlement. “I meant on the globe,” she told him. “Papa keeps a large one in here- I don’t know if you’ve seen it?”

David nodded.

She suddenly felt an urge to explain herself. “Gee told them Mama was in Australia, but really, she’s in Austria- and some other places I can’t quite remember- but then Caroline wanted to find Australia, so we came here,” she rattled out in an uncharacteristically fast pace. She winced- why did she sound like _Gee_?

“Does your mama travel much?”

Selina smiled. The unspoken rule she’d grown up with was to never speak about her mother unless spoken to about, but here was a boy, her cousin, who _wanted_ to know more.

“Oh yes!” Selina said with pleasure. “She’s performed in Paris, Madrid, all the big Italian cities- Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome… she’s been everywhere, really,” she added, a little wistful.

David smiled. “I should like very much to go to Rome, for I am learning Latin and they used to speak it there.” He gestured to the book in his lap.

“Are you reading in Latin?” Selina asked, a little envious. She had no great facilities for languages, unlike Gee, who was determined to be gregarious in as many tongues as possible.

“Sort of. It’s an exercise book. My tutor gave it to me so I can practice.”

“You’re studying _here_?” Selina asked, wondering if the Earl Clyvedon truly enjoyed such tedious work, or was a horrible swot. Still, it was a nice change of pace from the rest of her cousins, who derived no greater enjoyment than from running aimlessly around Aubrey’s grounds, intent on wreaking as much havoc as possible. 

“My tutor and Papa told me it’s so I can get a head-start before Eton,” David said.

Selina’s brows furrowed. “Eton?” 

“You know, the school.” He then proceeded to describe the school, from what little he’d pieced together from his father and uncles’ reminiscences. Eton, to Selina, seemed to be a frightful place full of rowdy, older boys forever getting into mischief, and the worst part was, he’d have to _board_ there.

“It must be terribly difficult, having to stay there without your mama and papa,” she said afterwards. She could hardly imagine such a thing- when her papa was away on estate business, her mama was always there, and Papa usually took charge of them whenever Mama was touring.

To her surprise, David only shrugged. “I’ll have to manage. Besides, there will be other boys in the dorms with me.”

“But you won’t know any of them,” Selina pointed out.

“Oliver will be there before I am…” David trailed off, even his tone sounding dubious.

A little smile tugged at Selina’s lips. “That doesn’t help anything, does it?” she asked.

He laughed as if he couldn’t help himself. “No, probably not,” he said, looking at her with a new fondness.

After that, they did not speak for the next several hours. 

Selina thought it was perfect. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
> 
> David and Selina are both 9. All biographic information on the next generation comes from Julia Quinn's very handy extended family tree: https://juliaquinn.com/bridgertons/family-tree-big.html
> 
> Check out my tumblr @hptriviachamp


End file.
